Perdition Catch My Soul
by Armelle-Madeline
Summary: But I do love thee. And if I do not, chaos is come again'. Of early-morning meetings, chocolate kisses and declarations.


**Perdition Catch My Soul**

Beta-d by Devon May

Rated PG-13, for language and naughty behaviour.

"I do beseech thee, grant me this,  
To leave me but a little to myself."

_Written for Froggie, whose 'ship request took a detour, to sadness and lost innocence, and tension. _

In the dim light, Harry threw off the blankets and half-stumbled, half-fell out of bed onto the stone flagons. They were icy cold and slippery underneath his bare feet and he shuffled to the end of the bed, suppressing a yawn. The faint snores and sighs of his housemates were a song akin to the early morning chorus, a rather less musical prelude to the sweeter song of the birds. The hangings were drawn on each bed, and frost fogged the diamond panes of the windows. It was near daybreak, and in the chill of the morning, Harry pulled his robes over his pyjamas, and then his father's Invisibility Cloak over that. Silently, he crept out of the dormitory, leaving the others to their unbroken sleep.

This was not amusing, Harry decided as he realised that there were steps to climb down, a tower to negotiate, and half a dozen moving staircases he'd never seen in the dawn of a morning, which had patterns. Regular patterns, which he didn't know. His feet were very definitely cold now, and as he turned around, having stepped out of the portrait-hole, he realised there was also no going-back-for-slippers-and-something-warmer. The Fat Lady was asleep, snoring, and she wasn't Going. To. Wake. Up. He even tried prodding the canvas experimentally. The paint rippled slightly under his fingers, giving him the faint feeling of nausea that came with seasickness. It was very odd.

He made his way slowly through the winding corridors of the tower, and down to the library. It was always the library, in these strange, odd little meetings. Snatches of daylight, midnight, moonlight. He draped the Cloak more assuredly around his shoulders – the mirror told him he was thinner, his frame bonier, worried shadows smeared under his eyes; he didn't believe it – and wandered through the sleeping castle, to the place where books, magic and mystery lived.

He saw Draco before Draco saw him. It was always the way with them, since the beginning, when Harry hadn't seen anything _but_ Draco. And as usual as was always his way, as soon as he'd found the blonde he paused, just to watch.

Harry had been struggling with doors that didn't open and staircases that went another way in the early hours, dawn had begun. Soft, rosy light cascaded down through the high, wide windows, bathing the boy in the gentle candescence, unaware as his quill moved swiftly across parchment, intent on a passage from the heavy book before him.

There were times when Harry was distinctly grateful to Narcissa Malfoy. This was one of them. Draco's pale, pure white skin was tinged with the rising rose pink of the dawning light. He was like the marble perfection of statues Harry had seen once, in a museum when Dudley had moaned loudly all the way 'round. Aunt Petunia had managed to hustle them through one gallery at least. Harry had to admit that his ten-year-old self hadn't been nearly as interested in the curve of a carefully hewn cheek as he was now. Draco's body was the model of the classical artist's work.

He watched the little mannerisms he'd learnt before he knew what lust was. The silky sweep of Draco's hair falling forward into his eyes, the impatient little brush of his fingers to tuck it back behind his ear, annoyed that it intruded into his studying. The intensity of the blue eyes Harry knew were raking the page as he read, absorbed in the fierce grasp of knowledge. The way he propped his chin on his fist, without lifting his eyes from the page, and the soft purse of his lips as he came across a passage he apparently disagreed with. Harry had known Draco's expressions since he'd been simply 'Malfoy'; he could read his moods and faces as if they were words spoken between them. He knew the nuances of an arched eyebrow, the twist of his lips into a mocking smile. He knew, and hated the blankness, when Draco noticed him watching, noticed him _learning_ him, and a silent wall descended between them. Those times he would watch hungrily for the blindness to lift, to see the turn of Draco's head, the flash of a sudden smile to someone's words, the dazzling grin he turned on those he flirted with.

His thoughts had drifted, and when he came back to here and now, the chilly library, Draco was looking at him steadily, a knowing smile curled on his lips. With an artful, self-conscious preen, he tossed his head, slanting a naughtily sly look at Harry from below his eyelashes. In this mood he was the flirt, Harry silently noted. It was a mood Harry adored, and he hated. It was when Draco was most playful, most carefree with him, and when he was farthest from the Draco that Harry hadn't seen yet. This was false and coy and a mask that hid him effortlessly from Harry's wanting.

"Lost in thought, Potter?" Draco asked archly, stretching his arms out above his head, lazily. "I know I'm stunningly attractive, but such blatant admiration is quite overlooked in you."

With a jerk, Harry realised he was still wearing the Invisibility Cloak. Was he that predictable? Did Draco always notice?

"Your body blocks the light from the wall behind you," Draco observed matter-of-factly from in front of him, still seated at the table. "And yes, you're predictable." He grinned, a bright flash of little-boy smug humour, proud to have out-witted Harry; that spoke of a time when he'd been a child. _When we were innocent,_ Harry thought silently. Harry unclasped the Cloak and let it slip. Draco had won the game, and Harry acknowledged his defeat.

"Have you been up all night?" he asked, stepping closer, looking at the pile of books, stacks of parchment and broken quills and bottles of ink that littered the tabletop. Draco looked at the sunrise.

"It seems so," he remarked. "Dawn. Sunlight. Another day," his tone shifted somewhat, from the smug resilience of the clever-dick to something infinitely more wistful, soft. Haloed in light, his expression moved like silver-fish, the trickster playing games at life. As soon as the longing had appeared, it had gone once more. It was easier to ignore than acknowledge its presence. Draco never would.

"Idiot," Harry told him affectionately, looking over Draco's shoulder to read interestedly what lay on the parchment, written in flowing, tiny, neat script. Draco's cramped hand, one he only got to see in brief moments. Draco never showed more than necessary of what was important. _Everyone_ heard about the latest trivialities in Draco's life; they were trumpeted from the tower-tops. A terrible gossip, nosy and interested in everything, Draco poked one long finger in every pie of the school, and licked it after, self-satisfied. Harry had listened to long discussions over whether Padma Patil qualified as really pretty, or merely just attractive, in a kinky, glasses-and-quill-pens way. Harry hadn't even bothered to wade into the discussion, grinning, shaking his head at the sheer idiocy of the whole thing. He was content to sit, and lean his chair back against the wall, and watch the animation as Draco gestured wildly to emphasise his point.

"Mm," Draco agreed, yawning sleepily. "But if you get to call me 'idiot', I get to call you 'Scar-head'." He looked at Harry, intrigued by the notion, and another of those quick grins slid across his face, slyly. He curved a look upward, to the boy at his shoulder, and tried to gauge the reaction.

"Fine," Harry shrugged calmly, a little answering smirk of his own on his lips. "Ferret-boy." A low, hollow, dramatic moan from Draco signalled the return of his play-acting. He threw an elegant hand up, waving it at Harry as if to shoo him, and his eyelashes fluttered closed, the back of his other hand pressed to his forehead.

"Away with you," he ordered and his voice faint. "Dreadful boy. That…incident-" he shuddered, "haunts me forever. I shall never forget it. I was strolling between classes, utterly unaware that a _vicious_ attack upon my person by the impostor Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher-" He shivered delicately. "Let us never speak of this again," he said imperiously. "I forbid it."

Harry suppressed his laughter. Draco standing upon his distressed dignity, flapping at him was quite something, and if he laughed, the blond would be most dreadfully offended. It was really quite hard.

"Idiot," he said again, and let his hand slip down to rest on Draco's shoulder casually. Draco's pyjama jacket was thin; black silk might be pretty to look at, and the blonde would sniff at the very idea that he should be subjected to lesser clothing materials, but the heat of Draco's skin seeped through the whispering fabric and seared Harry's palm. Draco didn't seem to notice that Harry's pulse had leapt, that his heart thrummed in his throat and his mouth had dried, burning hotter than the Sahara.

"No, actually," Draco said, as if deeply, deeply offended by the very suggestion of a slur on his intelligence. "It requires quite a lot of study." He pointed to a line of handwriting. "Here, the difference is quite subtle, and it's the _nuances_ of the text that give the interpretation. See, if you read it one way, it has a completely different meaning to another, but it's based on inflection, and the placing of letters." He was off, explaining his studies, galloping through translations and the finer points of things, flushed with excitement and success and interest. Was it wrong, Harry wondered faintly, that this seemed to him to be foreplay?

"Sit down," Draco ordered, still in his little-emperor tone, still bound up in a tight weave of knowledge and study and sleeplessness. As Harry sat obediently, his fingers skimming Draco's arm as he moved, unable to not touch him if he was within reach, Draco's shining blue-grey eyes met his own, a flood of exhilaration in their depths, and pleasure. An answering smile lit up Harry's face, aware that this was Draco in his element, happy and satiated with knowledge and understanding, swept away by a tide of study that Harry didn't understand, nor care about, but loved because Draco loved it.

Eventually, Draco came to an end, and slid another look at Harry, exasperated now. "Why didn't you stop me?" he asked, sighing with impatience. "You didn't understand a word of it, did you?"

Harry shook his head, grinning. Draco rolled his eyes, sighed again, and tossed up his hands. "And I'm the idiot," he addressed the ceiling, "apparently. He sits there, listening, not hearing a word I say…" He poked Harry in the ribs, one long bony finger finding the most ticklish spot without effort, and prodding him hard.

Harry squirmed, fending Draco off half-heartedly as he played along. "Why were you up all night?" he asked, longing to tuck the piece of white blonde hair that had fallen into Draco's eyes behind his ear, to smooth it away for him.

Draco shrugged; an elusive look to the nonchalant movement. Even like this, Harry noticed, Draco was graceful, elegant in a casual, bored sort of way. He looked at Harry quickly, his eyes sliding away, and yawned.

"Work to do," he said unconcernedly, with a little moue of distaste. He glanced at Harry again, and stretched his arms, the slippery silk of his pyjama jacket riding up. A glint of white skin caught the corner of Harry's eye; a strip of Draco's stomach.

"What work?" Harry inquired, resentful of anything that he didn't know, desiring to know and understand anything he could of Draco, and what the blond was involved in, studied, worked at. He propped his chin on his hand, looking at the parchment as if he could scorch the words off the page.

"Work work," Draco said archly, a faint look of annoyance slipping across that pale, pointed face. His voice was quieter. "Work that's important. We are in a war, you know." The sly little remark bridled Harry, a tiny prick of remembrance that he didn't know everything; that Draco's façade was still there, for him. Harry couldn't even pretend that when they were alone, Draco would drop the brilliant, sparkling act and be simply himself, be simply Draco as he was seen by Pansy and Nott and …others. Be the Draco Harry wanted most of all.

"Still," Harry insisted doggedly, "you shouldn't be up all night to do it. It can get done." There was a short moment where Draco wasn't looking at him, giving off the bored air of someone who cannot simply be bothered. "I never get to see you," Harry added softly, hating himself for the admission.

"You see me now," Draco pointed out, spreading his arms wide. "Feel privileged, Potter. You have my undivided attention." With an extravagant gesture, and sweep of his hand, he knocked the parchment and books from the table, a delicate tinkle of glass shattering on the stone floor. A pool of dark ink, black as freshly shed blood seeped through the parchment with a telling stain.

"What was that for?" Harry demanded, angry at the petulance and irritation in Draco's movements written plainly across the blonde's face. Angry with himself, that he'd wrecked the peace and delight of the early morning moment.

With a calmness and indifference that was supremely maddening, Draco shrugged expressively. "I felt like it," he decided, very definitely. "And doesn't the smash make a lovely sound?" He grinned like a naughty angel, and peeped at Harry from under lowered lashes.

"Stop it!" Harry shouted, exasperated, frustrated and at an end of patience. "Stop it. Stop being this, stop being this … Idiocy. You're not _this_." He gestured irritably at Draco, who coolly leaned back in his chair and crossed his ankles, a bare expanse of flesh exposed by the ends of his black silk pyjamas. "You're not any of it," Harry said again, strangely stung by it all. "I don't want you to be happy, I don't want you to always play the fool, and be on form. I want _you_," he said desperately, hating and hating this faceless, shifting Draco with a helpless fury that overtook him.

"I'm not what you want, Potter," Draco said mildly, only the tight set to his jaw betraying anything but cold indifference. "I'm myself. I don't quite know what you mean." The decidedness of his tone, the haughtiness and underlying dismissal of the subject left no room for argument.

"I want everything," Harry said dreadfully miserable and aware that he had ruined all that he'd had with his need for what he hadn't got. "I want the you that is beautiful in dawn, I want the you that laughs and the you that wants things furiously, and is intent on getting them. I want the you that is enthralled by Arithmancy and Runes, and studies like Hermione before exams. But I want the you you never show me," he said determinedly, his chin lifted firmly. "I want you as everyone else sees me. Slytherin has their claws into you," he said bitterly, jealous and sullenly tired of sounding petulant and childish, but needing, raw and exposed, to have the part of Draco that meant that Draco _trusted_ him.

There was a long, terrible pause. Harry didn't dare look at Draco, his wretchedness a cold, desolate bundle clutched close to his heart, because it was still a part of Draco, and that he clung to.

Draco laughed, slowly and deliberately. Cold, calculating and infinitely cruel, designed to hurt Harry more than anything, and with the clear crystalline of Draco's mirth, Harry's heart sank painfully deeper into his chest.

"I am Slytherin," he said proudly, rising to look down his nose at Harry with cold, silvery disdain. His lips curved in a smile sharper than a bright, shining knife; a smile that flayed Harry closer than a knife could do.

"I am Slytherin," Draco repeated evenly, and he stood very straight. "You're behaving like a child, Potter," he said very deliberately. "Slytherin need me. Pansy, Nott, even Blaise, needs me. I am theirs as they are mine, because we have no-one else. Because in Slytherin, we have no one to guide us. I _have_ to be with them and there are moments you will never, ever share, because you're not one of us. Because they need a side of me that you don't, when you have Dumbledore and Weasley and Granger. Because you don't understand enough to be what I need. " There was something very great, very horrible about each measured word that cut through Harry's awful wanting, and showed the deep, raw core to him.

"Why?" Harry whispered, his voice hoarse and guttural, but it was not a question of the blonde, standing looking as aristocratic as he ever had. Why was he not satisfied? Why did he want more than he could have?

"Because you don't understand," Draco said simply, relentless and cruel. "You can't make me what you want me to be, Potter. They need me far more than you do, and they come first. They will always come first." He sighed, and the exhalation broke the tension of the moment. Silently, they regarded one another for a long, long minute.

"I'm seeing you now," Harry offered hesitantly, a tentative, unspoken apology between them. Draco didn't apologise, he never did. Never would, Harry acknowledged, as he acknowledged everything else. Harry sacrificed pride and self-worth, giving in to the desire he had to be with the other. Draco smiled radiantly, and the sun was out once more.

"You are," he said emphatically, and frowned, a little wrinkle forming between his eyebrows. "You're distracting," he complained, with the peevishness of a kept courtesan, who knows he is beautiful enough to run away with manners. "I was working when you came in. Come and distract me further," he ordered imperiously, sliding his chair back and tipping his head back to watch Harry approach.

Harry perched on the edge of the desk, his legs overly long to be comfortable for much longer.

"I'm hungry," Draco complained, in a lazy drawl. He folded his arms across his chest and watched Harry from half-closed eyes. "You. Fetch me food, Potter," he commanded, shutting his eyes firmly.

"What?" Harry protested good-naturedly. "Why do I have to feed you?" The moment the words were out, images revelled through his mind, technicolor and vivid. Feeding Draco, Draco's lips closing over his fingers, the heat of Draco's mouth around him, silvery eyes on his own as he sucked gently, tongue flicking - Harry blushed violently. Draco leaned forward with interest, a sparkle in his eyes.

"Oh what was famous Harry Potter thinking about now?" he asked, with very evident amusement. " Was it naughty? Was it quite scandalous?" He sighed, shaking his head. "I can't possibly think of an association you might have made," he declared, with a playful grin.

"I thought you were hungry?" Harry muttered, cheeks still burning, and he fumbled in his robe pocket. A moment later he fished a rather battered bar of chocolate out of it, and handed it to Draco. "That's the last of my chocolate from Honeydukes," he announced. Draco fell on the chocolate with the ravening hunger of a baby wolf.

"_Angel_," he declared rapturously, biting into the chocolate with relish. "I am dying of starvation." He licked a square with the pink tip of his tongue, and slid a devious look at Harry, suddenly intent on lavishing tiny brushes of his tongue across the chocolate.

"If you're going to play with it," Harry said lightly, "you can give some to me." Draco looked at him and there was a pause, only broken by the rustle of silver paper as Draco smoothed the crinkles from the wrapper with the tips of his fingers.

Silvery eyes calmly met confused green ones.

"All right," Draco said quietly, and one corner of his mouth turned up in a wicked little smile. There was a fleeting change in his expression, unnoticeable to some. Just a glitter, in those strange, silver eyes. But Harry wasn't 'some'. Mischievously, like an impish Cupid, the blonde's lips pursed in a pout, and the tip of his red tongue poked out. A soft, melting lump of chocolate sat on the very end of it, and Draco's eyes danced roguishly, glinting.

Harry pushed off from the desk, and stood between it, and Draco.Uncertain, and wanting still, he paused, teeth gripping his lower lip as he worriedly thought it over.

With a little sigh of impatience, Draco reached up and grabbed a fistful of Harry's robes, and pulled the boy down to his level. Harry could feel the tightness of his collar, the heavy black fabric bunched in Draco's hands, and his eyes were suddenly very close to Draco's. His eyelashes were long, and very pale, and as Harry gazed straight into the grey of Draco's eyes, he saw himself reflected back. There was a moment when they were as close as two people could be without touching. Draco's breath fanned against his cheek, warm and soft. His pulse raced in his throat, an answering beat in the hollow of Draco's throat. Lazily, Draco regarded him from heavy-lidded eyes, and smiled slowly.

And then they were kissing. The taste of chocolate, Harry thought, had never been so dizzying and combined as it was with the taste of Draco himself, chocolate still tingling in his mouth as the remains of it mingled between them. The bite of the kiss didn't matter, that they were kissing so hard their teeth clashed, because it was heady and the flavour was the indescribable, unique one of Draco's kiss. Harry's fingers found the pale 'v' of flesh exposed by the collar of Draco's pyjamas, that he'd longed to explore, to taste, to lick. There was so much to find and touch but the kiss still burned, searing with the bitterness and resentment that would go unspoken until a bit longer, the tension of war and rivalry and knowing that this wouldn't, couldn't last.

And it shifted, as Draco's hand sifted through Harry's hair with an infinitely gentle touch, cupping the back of his head. Slow, and giddily sweet, dreamy, Harry's breath caught in his throat, and he broke the kiss regretfully, but gasping for air. Their eyes met once more, Harry's, he knew, were deep green with the desire, the light-headedness of lack of breath. Draco's were unreadable, as they always were in the throes of some emotion, but a faint smile curved on those red lips.

Harry had had kisses before. Kisses with Cho, that were wet and oddly distasteful, as if he were doing something wrong, but couldn't really work out what it was that made it wrong. Kisses with Ginny, curled in his arms, warm and living as she returned his kiss with an ardour of sweetness and innocence. But Draco's kiss was never truly innocent. Stained with corruption, darkness tinged them, creeping on the edges with a fire that would consume them both.

But unlike himself, Draco seemed untouched, his breathing even, gaze steady. Harry watched him, frowning with confusion. How was it Draco could wreak such havoc within himself, and remain so collected and cool?

"Had what you came for?" Draco asked lazily, but the affection that had been there only moments before had dissipated; the aftermath of the kiss stung with cold indifference. He rose from his chair, and in doing so, pushed Harry back against the desk as Draco's robes brushed past him.

"What?" Harry asked, honestly bewildered. What was it that had brought down the mask once more? Why Draco was so able to get under his skin so effortlessly, and could push him away with ease?

Draco ignored him, bending to pick up the parchment dripping with ink from the floor, and disgustedly holding it with the tips of his fingers, as far away from his body as he could.

"It's what you come for, isn't it?" he remarked, apparently absorbed in clearing up the stack of parchment, rolling it neatly and piling it on the closest chair. "To release some of that sexual tension you have, cradled up in the bosom of fuzzy Gryffindor, sheltered in those little four-posters, as your housemates snore. It's when you're awake, when the darkness that curls inside you rises, that you creep down here, find me. Release." It was said off-hand, detached, but Harry stopped and stared, blood draining from the happy flush he'd had moments before.

"Is that what you think?" he spluttered, amazed and appalled by the accusation calmly levelled at him. "Is that all you think you mean to me? _Release_?" Angry bluster grew stronger, impassioned by indignation. His arms had folded defensively across his chest; he knew his black hair stood on end, raked through by Draco's fingers, his eyes furious. "You daft, fucking prat," he said steadily.

Draco looked back at him silently, one white hand dripping with ink. One pale blond eyebrow raised in a wordless question.

"You're...you're everything," Harry faltered, feeling silly, the words sounding like the childish rant of someone who didn't understand what they were playing with. "You're…the one who understands. I've tried to give you everything of me, and most of the time I don't care that you won't share everything of yourself with me. I…" He hesitated. The words had gone unsaid, because he truly believed Draco knew. But he didn't, didn't seem to realise that Harry wasn't playing, wasn't dallying. This felt unreal because it was so huge, so great that it scared him still.

"Don't. Say. It." Draco's voice was harsh, and hoarse. He'd closed his eyes. "Don't, Potter." He sounded tired, as if some part of the mask had slipped, and Harry had broken through, but ... broken him. "Don't say something stupid you'll regret." He looked at Harry once more, with those icy grey eyes that told him nothing, ever. Even as he must be shaken, Harry knew with the passion of one who _knows_, he gave no sign of it, no hint. That chilly core remained strong.

"But isn't this-?" Harry had to know that it wasn't, he wasn't taking, and it wasn't selfish. He looked at Draco, and helplessly asked, "You do like it?"

Draco's lips twisted into an ugly smile. "Oh yes, of course, Potter," he drawled aristocratically, with every syllable extended with sophisticated boredom. "I simply _adore_ being some little boy's foray into darkness. I love giving something up, and then the same brat demanding more, greedily. I love furtive kisses in a library when I have work to do and I'm tired, and there are people waiting up for me. I love dealing with petulance, and temper-tantrums. I simply can't _wait_ for a prying Gryffindor to poke large fingers into my life to rip it open to his curiosity." The acid sarcasm dripped from his voice, each pointed stab a thrust from a fine swordsman, who can stand back and observe with pleasure the result of his skill.

"Well what do _you_ want from it?" Harry demanded shakily, cut deep. "Why do you do it then?" _Why do you make me feel the way you do, and then say it means nothing?_ He wondered silently.

Draco shrugged expansively, still expressionless. "It amuses me," he said finally. "Your fumbling for passion, half-stumbling and scared of real darkness." It was pitiless, this observation of Draco's, but dispassionate. "Don't believe for one moment that you can inspire anything broaching that in me," he warned, lifting that pale, pointed chin and looking down his nose at Harry.

"What is passion, then?" Harry argued, hotly. "I'm not innocent, Draco. I know what sex and stuff is." He blushed, almost, at the ridiculousness of it. The childlike statement, that Draco hadn't failed to pick up on.

With a movement quicker than Harry's thoughts could conceive of, Draco had his robes once more, and spun, slamming his back hard against the shelves of books. Harry's breath escaped his lips with a heavy gasp, and he winced, his face white, and his eyes fixed solemnly on Draco's. The blonde paused for a minute, the unemotional grey eyes sweeping over Harry, and then kissed him.

It was punishingly fierce, a brutal mockery of the gentle kisses they'd shared before. Passion and lust freely coursed through his kiss, exulting in the violent joy of it, in the acknowledgement of their existence. It was a kiss that told tales of the taking, that bled and bit and dominated, laughing at those involved. Intense and filled with the hopeless rage of those who faced death, and darkness, who freely surrendered innocence to blood-stained passion. It was exhilarating, and breathless, and Harry no longer felt the wooden shelves press painfully against his spine, nor heard the crash as books fell to the floor, knocked away. All at once, he was in Draco's world, where there was no black, nor white, but only a thousand shards of grey, all sharp and pointed and broken.

His skin prickled with desire and want, the force that was Draco contained inside such a fragile existence. It was everything that Draco was, as black and tainted as he, and corruption sang a sweet song. And as the boy broke away, glaring at Harry with a tempestuous emotion that wasn't hatred nor lust, his breath coming in short pants, Harry longed for more.

And as he leant against the bookshelves for support, weak from craving and unsteady at being knocked from his feet, when his eyes sought Draco's, they found a strange, odd look in them that they hadn't seen before.

"Go away, Potter," Draco said softly, and he was once more the jaded emperor, dismissing his subject effectively. "Go on, go." He scooped up the rolls of parchment and tucked them under his arm. "I'm going to go and bathe," he said, and wrinkled his nose with distaste. "I smell. I smell odious, and distinctly repulsive. I need a long, long bath. And to wash my hair," he added, plaintively.

"You don't smell horrible," Harry murmured wistfully, the scent of Draco, warm and musky and tinged with the faint smell of cloves, and oranges; an old-fashioned cologne clinging to his skin and robes.

"I do," Draco said decidedly. "And then I shall have tea. I am simply dying for a cup of decently brewed tea. But in the absence of properly trained house-elves, mediocre or appalling tea will do." He quirked an eyebrow at Harry; the jab was a deliberate provocation. "And then I want toast. I am a gentleman, and a gentleman eats breakfast."

Harry didn't want the strange, crazy snatched early-morning to end. As he watched Draco, elegant even as he padded over stone flagons in silk pyjamas and robes, in a way that would make anyone else look ridiculous, he cradled the mixed-up, confusing feelings to himself, and brushed his fingers over his lips, as if he could still feel Draco's kiss.

"I'm going," he said, quietly. He had to be first, couldn't wait here while the library changed from being the frame for Draco's vividness, lively existence, and turned back into a library again, chilly with the early morning. He bundled the Invisibility Cloak back up in his arms, and glanced back at Draco, expecting to see him still gathering parchment, quills, and his bag.

Draco stood still, looking back at him sombrely, face composed. He could have been looking at anyone. Harry let his gaze drop, and shook out the folds of the Invisibility Cloak. They never said goodbye. 'Goodbye' would have made it a meeting, with a beginning a middle and a distinct end. There was never an end to this. It was simply a mad sort of limbo, in which they were suspended. Occasionally Harry thought that if the war hadn't linked them, they would never have shared even this.

And as he pulled the Invisibility Cloak over his head, and walked out, resolute, he didn't look back. He didn't see Draco sigh, and his shoulders slump, and he didn't see Draco sink down in the chair once more, his face covered with his hands.

He didn't watch Draco leave, and he didn't see the morning light spill cheerfully through the library windows and pick out on the stone floor a faded, dried stain from a broken bottle of ink, and glint off the shards.


End file.
